Still Running
by Sarah1281
Summary: He has had a long time to think about how the future would be, the day that he would eventually return and try to set things right. He would have thought that, after all the years, the answers would come easier but somehow it never did. Still, there was a son to see and a curse to break and maybe afterwards...maybe.


Still Running

He never would have been able to leave if he hadn't planned on one day coming back.

He sometimes liked to pretend that leaving his too-young son to his fate and never looking back was the hardest thing he had ever had to do but truthfully that wasn't it. It was easier than staring down a hideous witch who proclaimed that a little herb pilfering meant that they had agreed that she would steal his precious baby daughter and watching through blurred vision as the two of them vanished. It was easier than watching his beloved wife pass so suddenly from this world.

Compared to that, walking away was easy. And after all, he knew that – unlike with the females of his family – his son would be right there where he left him.

Leaving the only family he had left, a child too young to even remember that he _had _a sister, wasn't easy, no.

But the hardest thing he ever could have done was stayed. Stayed and remembered, stayed and be crushed by the weight of his failure and what it meant for that little boy with the too-big eyes.

He never could have borne the leaving if he hadn't told himself that one day he would come back. His son had no idea about the curse on their family and he would inevitably find a nice girl to settle down with and want to have children with. When that day came – if it came – he would come back and fix things. Somehow.

Sometimes, while he was trying not to miss him, he would vaguely wonder about what he would say to his son.

How would he approach the situation?

He couldn't just knock on the door and introduce himself as the long-lost father. He might not even be believed, his son had been so young when he left. Who even knew what the boy believed actually happened? And how could he explain?

Well, if he didn't tell him right off then how would he explain his presence? He was just some random bread-buyer? He didn't even know if his son was a baker! He had to be a baker. It was in his blood. It wasn't the only thing but it was perhaps the most positive. If he did manage to get his son to let him into his life to the extent that he could help him break the curse (how would he even explain about the curse?) how would he break the news of their relation?

"Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that I'm your father."

That would go over well. As awkward as just coming right out and saying it would be, something told him that waiting too long would just be worse.

And he didn't even know how to break the curse or if it was even possible. Well…it had to be possible, right? All curses could be broken. But that didn't make it easy or something that they were capable of doing. And why would the witch just agree to tell them? If anything, she would probably keep it from them out of spite. Would it be better for his line to end with his son with no explanation or with his son and his wife knowing exactly why?

Years passed and he pondered the question on and off but he never did come up with a satisfactory answer.

As he kept coming up against a mental wall, unable to find a way to come back into his son's life properly, it became easier to just put it off until another day. His son was only four, he was only ten, he was only fifteen, this was all something that would come to pass years in the future.

And then one day he found that his son was married and it was time to come back.

It would have been easier to stay away but then how could he justify his leaving in the first place? He had spent too long promising himself that he would fix it one day to not even try. And his son didn't deserve this.

He wondered, vaguely, if he would even know him after all this time but the minute he saw his son he knew.

That made him feel a little better even if he did have to ignore the fact that his son was the only one who was going around talking about how he had to find a bunch of items for a witch so that the curse of childlessness that she had placed would be lifted.

When he first saw him, he didn't know what to say. He didn't know the situation or how his son felt about it or him or any of it. The witch had told him of the curse and he could only imagine the things that she would have had to say about him. It was safer – and indeed far smarter – to just wait and see.

His son wasn't running from it. He did have a troubling tendency to try and tackle the problem alone but his wife insisted on helping anyway. And he _wasn't running from it_. He was actually facing down the witch and killing wolves and chasing cows and it was magnificent.

The first time they actually came face to face since that day that he had walked out, he had to borrow five gold pieces from him without his consent. Some people might consider that stealing – his son certainly did – but he had to, really. His son couldn't give the cow back until the curse was reversed and he wouldn't need enough money to buy baking supplies for a year in the next two days. What if something went wrong? What if he needed the money for something a little more practical than that? Or at least more pressing?

If he was wrong and no money was needed then he would just return it once the curse was broken and all would be forgiven. Or at least the "theft." And he did have to return it when the cow died anyway.

What was he supposed to do? Just interrupt his son's quest in order to have a family reunion? His son didn't have time for that! There were only three midnights until the time for breaking the curse was past! There would be all the time in the world for a proper reunion and many good, long talks once a grandchild became possible.

How selfish would it be, after everything, to distract his son from his quest and possibly cause him to fail? That would ruin everything and make all of this meaningless. He couldn't make amends if he ruined his son's future.

And so he waited. Waited and edged things along and even faced down the witch once more. He wasn't afraid this time. What more could she possibly take from him?

And then it was time to see if the curse could be broken and all of his sins undone.

This was the most important moment of his life. What if it didn't work? The cow died and had to be replaced by a cow that wasn't even really white. Maybe his son couldn't have found a milky-white one for sale but surely he could have gotten a little bit closer than a brown cow! Did he really think that the witch just wanted a white cow for aesthetics? But he was blessed, perhaps, in having so little experience with magic.

He couldn't stay away. When the witch brought the cow back to life and started to feed it the ingredients he felt a faint stirring of hope that was promptly crushed when nothing happened. It came out that the hair as yellow as corn was taken from the girl that the witch had locked up in the tower all these years.

His…daughter. Rapunzel. He had seen her and she was his daughter. He had last seen her on the day she was born, only a few scant days before he had left her brother. And yet somehow he didn't feel the connection to her. Somehow there was no drive to seek her out. It wasn't because she was a daughter instead of a son, he knew. He had actually prayed for a daughter when his wife had first been expecting.

Was it perhaps that she had been so thoroughly claimed by the witch? Was it that his own foolishness had cost her her freedom and saddled her with every woe she had ever had? Yes, the witch seemed to love her and mean well but…she was locked in a tower with no doors and had been for as long as she could remember. Good intentions weren't everything.

He supposed that if the curse were not broken then she would not have any children either but, then again, if she did not get out of that desert that the witch had banished her to then she would not have any children either. But what could he do about that?

At least he could save his son from this.

It was the most important moment of his son's life and of that woman who he supposed was his daughter-in-law. He hadn't really processed having a daughter and now there was another daughter of a sort. When he stepped forward to offer the corn solution they eagerly accepted it but then the witch…she _had _to know that he hadn't told his son the truth. And what did she do, right in the middle of a curse breakage that she seemed – if anything – even more invested in than his son?

She told his son who he really was.

His son…perhaps he shouldn't be surprised. His son seemed to have thought that he was dead. It was a more charitable belief than reality, perhaps. But to stop in the middle of breaking the curse and freeing them all because he wanted to talk now? He hadn't expected his absence to hit his son so badly. He wasn't even old enough to remember.

He had no time for a reunion. The seconds were ticking by and there was no _time_. There was no avoiding coming to terms with his son now even if he wanted to. And he didn't, truly! It was just…how to begin? What to say? What to do? Would even breaking this curse be enough to make things right? It wouldn't change the past. Nothing could do that.

He conceded that, yes, he was who the witch said he was. It was easier to do it when he knew that he wouldn't have to face it just yet. He brushed it off with a reminder that they were running out of time and, reluctantly, his son turned from him.

See, there was a boy that knew what was important. He'd make a good father. He was so proud of him, so proud that he could help play a part in making that happen, even if it had been largely his fault that there was ever a chance that it might not.

And then the curse was broken.

And then his son would demand answers. And then he would have to give them.

And then…


End file.
